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Comment by nsebban | Hacker News Reader

While I like the idea of having open source alternatives to the popular applications, this one is a pure and simple copy of Trello. This is a bit too much IMO.

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Funny cause in the past wekan did get into trouble over the use of a similar logo and stylesheets taken from Trello (iirc).

They've come a long way since and I think with time they can really shape up to become a strong competitor to Trello.

Side note: When I was working in a corporate environment I was able to setup an instance myself to help organize my tasks. Had I used Trello it would've been against our policy if I potentially left sensitive data on there and hard(read: impossible for me alone) to get permission to use Trello officially.

Reinventing proprietary wheels is a proud Free Software tradition. Look at the GNU project for the largest example.

Hi, I'm maintainer of Wekan.

Trello related CSS was dropped in Wekan v0.9 2015-09-10, so after that Wekan does not use anything from Trello. UI and feature set is different.

https://github.com/wekan/wekan/wiki/FAQ#why-does-wekan-look-...

https://github.com/wekan/wekan/blob/devel/CHANGELOG.md#v09-2...

According to Open Hub, Wekan currently has about 9000 lines of code without counting Meteor.js framework and related packages.

https://www.openhub.net/p/wekan

What made you decide on meteor?

Hi, I'm current maintainer of Wekan.

I don't remember did Wekan original creator Maxime Quandalle mention why did he choose Meteor.js in his talk at YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N3iMLwCNOro

xet7 is not the original creator of Wekan, so it would be hard for him to say. ;)

if it isn't free/libre software it doesn't really exist since i cannot self-host or modify the software to suit my needs.

trello is a nice prototype tho.

Why do you want to selfhost Trello? Are you afraid that somebody at Trello might steal your secret cards, todos, specs, etc. and sells them?

I know self hosting is actually better but it is also work and is the typical information which people put on Trello confidential enough to justify self hosting? IDK and again Trello is free.

There are legitimate reasons for wanting/needing to self-host. For example, in a regulatory environment, I could see managing PHI data (not for clinical treatment, but maybe tracking clinical research). In this case, Trello would either need to sign a BAA or you'd need to self host something.

There are many reasons why self-hosting is the only viable option for some use-cases.

And then there are also data longevity issues, where you'd need the ability to backup and restore your data. If Trello goes away (as a free service), then you have fewer options in the regard.

> For example, in a regulatory environment, I could see managing PHI data

This is exactly why I have a spare box running Wekan in my office at work. We run clinical applications for a hospital; sometimes project tracking+testing involves PHI that we have to be super careful about letting into the outside world.

who said anything about confidentiality? i'm talking about long-term viability. if i self-host, i don't have to worry about Trello's business model or changes to the product that i don't like/want. i have control. which is whole point.

Well...yeah. Trello is free, and the expectation is that if you're not paying, you're the product.

> the expectation is that if you're not paying, you're the product.

What are you talking about? In what way are Trello users 'the product'? Are you just repeating a catch phrase that people say about other companies or do you actually know this to be the case?

I don't use Trello myself, but unless something has changed there aren't ads being shown to users (the reasons for the 'you're the product' saying for services like Google or Facebook), I'm not sure what data they could sell that would be worthwhile for a to-do app. What else would make the users 'the product'?

AFAIK they make all their money from their premium services, and since being bought by Atlassian I doubt revenue is at the top of their priority list anyway. Atlassian is full of premium services and Trello seems like a way to introduce all of those users to Atlassian's suite.

It also allows them to sell your data for mining purposes. In the next year we are going to see many AI business buy access to many unique large datasets.

"It's hard to imagine that we would ever consider collecting, let alone sharing, sensitive information with a non-agent third party, but if such a day should come, we will first give you the opportunity to explicitly consent (opt-in) to such disclosure or to any use of the information for a purpose other than the one for which it was originally collected or previously authorized." https://trello.com/privacy

Trello is freemium https://trello.com/pricing, they make money from users upgrading

Trello has a free tier. They don't do data collection as far as I know.

The free tier is a cheap loss leader for the actual product which are the enterprise and team versions which are not free.

> I know self hosting is actually better but it is also work ...

Worth pointing out: they have a sandstorm version, which changes the amount of justification need rather a lot.

For some projects you need to self host because of the US protectionist and paranoid export laws for tech. Specially in aerospace, nuclear, some type of sensors, etc...

That or you need a contract that guarantees that the software is hosted outside the US, which Trello won't provide.

Integrations with third-party stuff perhaps? Plus Wekan's slight differences seem like improvements to me.

I couldn't implement trello in a few situations because of corporate paranoia

edit: Nevermind!

Nah, the tweet is about Twilio, not Trello

Argh! Not the first time that's tripped me up. Thanks.

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